As opioid epidemic worsens, the cost of waking up from an overdose soars (CNBC)
Wednesday Jan 4th, 2017
Taylor Kay was driving on Interstate 290, heading east near Chicago, when a car veered across lanes of traffic into the highway median.
"I thought, 'Something is wrong,'" the 26-year-old said. "So I get out of my car, and I see he's overdosing, with a needle still in his arm."
Kay recognized what was happening to the driver because it could have happened to her. She had used heroin for six years, until she was 24, and she herself has overdosed. She knew what to do.
"I go to my car and I get my Narcan, because I always have it with me," Kay said, referring to the brand name of the drug naloxone, which quickly reverses opioid overdoses. "Once I put the Narcan in him, it took about 20 seconds. … I was so scared that this kid was going to die."
He didn't; he woke up, Kay said. She called 911, and the paramedics who arrived later told her the driver had taken fentanyl — a synthetic opioid up to 100 times more potent than morphine.